Snake 12, Year 8693 of The Grand Wulin Era, Hou Mingzhou

We were flying on Avarius's back, looking over the landscape as we went, and I thought it was pretty beautiful. Trees, towering or tiny, bushes with fruit, interesting , multicolored herbal ground covers, All sorts of stuff. We were about a hundred feet over the treetops,and I saw a well kept blue stone path,worn smooth by generations of feet, wheels, hooves, claws, and so on stretched through a beautiful forest. It was full of interesting looking variants of common trees and beasts, as well as some very magical ones that gave off strong auras and had oddities like fruit that could be used for Alchemy or do weird stuff like grow extra limbs, or a tree where the leaves and trunk were made of living metal, or the deer with what looked like solidified fire for antlers.

Interested, I scanned it with my Divine Sense, trying not to spook the deer, and found out that the bones in the antlers had become a weird hybrid between bones and Mana Crystals.I also noticed he was on the verge of gaining sapience and becoming a Magic Beast because the mana activity around his head was unusually high. He was pretty standard for a fire affinity deer besides that, but the whole crystal bones thing wasn't supposed to happen until you reached at least peak 9th layer Mana Sea in Body Refinement, and since the deer was only at peak 9th layer Mist Sea, I figured the majority of its cultivation was focused into its antlers. It'd make a strong defensive weapon for the deer, but why would it do that, since antlers were temporary and all? Was it trying to leave a source of mana lying around for other people to scavenge? Oops, I'd scanned too obviously and spooked the deer! He ran, and in his panic,smashed into one of the metal trees hard. About half of one of his antlers snapped off, with not even a mark left on the tree.

The deer got up and noticed his snapped antler lying on the ground, and quickly... oh man, that deer ate it! The aura of mana surrounding him got stronger, and suddenly, the weirdness made sense! The deer used them as a weapon when they were there, and took advantage of the fact that they were very full of pure, concentrated mana to help it cultivate! I figured next time he shed his antlers, if he managed to survive 'til then, he'd metamorphosize into a Magic Beast and reach the Mana Sea stage. I didn't know if it was evolution or the gods being really clever, but since i'd never heard of a deer with mana crystal antlers, I figured this weird species or variant or whatever had evolved recently. Man, I had to tell Uncle Alim about this guy, he'd love to find out how this deer does what it does and what it might have evolved from. Well, I would tell him, but that story is for another time,but would lead to some pretty cool stuff, if I remember correctly.

The deer scampered off, but my attention was caught by something else. A ten foot tall.... turtle-rabbit? Looking closer, the shell was like a normal turtle shell, but the skin and bone plates had a rough, rocklike texture. There was probably a lot of earth mana in there. But still, turtle-rabbit, how did that work? Some sick, sadistic bastard had to have created it, because while species boundaries can be pretty fuzzy when it comes to Magic Beasts, this guy clearly wasn't one yet, and the line between rabbit and turtle seemed too distinct for it to be natural.

As I watched, a green-and-white furred tiger , a bit on the small side for a tiger, snuck up on the turtle-rabbit, clumsily using the wind to boost its speed as it sprang at the rabbit's neck. The turtabbit, feeling danger at the last moment, tucked its head into its shell and sprang into the air,its feet tucking in as well as it cleared the ground. The edge of the ascending shell smacked the unfortunate tiger in the forehead, knocking it out cold, and the rabbit flew over our heads, narrowly missing us, before crashing through the canopy into a forest pond, scaring the hell out of some fish and an alligator, who yelled, seeming almost as suprised by his own speech as by the terrified rabbit now floating in its pond.

"Oh shit, what the fuck is this? It nearly smacked me in the head? Wait, since when did I lose my lisp? This is awesome, I gotta tell Ted." the Blue-and-brown scaled alligator yelled.He was about 20 feet long, and had quite a scary looking mouth.

"Ted? Ted? Where are you, Ted?" He paused, scanning a wide area with Divine Sense, and noticing us. "Hey, you three, flying up there, you seen a green-and-white tiger? Little bit uhh.. dainty? Delicate? Small?, early Mana Sea, really fluffy fur."

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Alex yelled back at him. "Yeah, we saw him. Promise not to eat us and we'll come down and show you where."

"Look, I don't eat people who can talk without their permission, and you and that monkey are wearing robes from that Myriad Existences Sect, it's safe. Please come on down, i'm afraid he's hurt or something. Also, yelling is physically painful and I don't know how to use that mana sound transmission I've heard about."

Avarius nodded, diving down through the hole in the canopy the rabbit had made and landing beside the pond. A very anxious looking gator waved a front leg at us. It was a pretty nice pond, and there was a house nearby, made out of some of those metal trees, that was constructed a bit roughly, but was pretty big and looked sturdy. The door didn't seem big enough to fit this alligator through, though. Eh, i'd ask him later.

Alex and I jumped off Avarius's back, and the dragon transformed into a dragon beastman, this time without his wings. How does he get his sect robes on while transforming? Alex was looking around, interested in everything as usual, and Avarius was staring at the gator, seeming a bit nervous.

"Hi. I'm Hou Mingzhou, the Human's Alexander Grandstar, and the Dragon is Avarius Goldscale. We're on a training mission from our sect. You are?"

The alligator shapeshifted into a human form. He was a tall, muscular, brown skinned man in his early twenties with short, curly hair the same blue as his beast form's scales, and his facial features and general appearance looked like the native people of the southern part of Vermillion Bird Continent. I was sure he'd be considered ruggedly handsome anywhere, though. I was almost sure the humans that lived there didn't have blue hair, but figured it didn't matter. He was wearing black cloth pants and a sleeveless blue shirt. He also had the bright yellow eye color of his beast form, but his eyes were otherwise human. Alex had said a while back that crocodiles , at least on our planet,originated on the Vermillion Bird Continent, so it made sense for this crocodile's human form to resemble the people who lived there. He extended a hand, that, fitting the rest of his frame, absolutely dwarfed my own. I grabbed it for a handshake and he spoke.

"Hi, I'm Kellan. No surname, though I'm thinking of taking one eventually. Can you show me where you saw Ted?" He asked, worry creeping into his face at the mention of his friend.

"Sure, follow me. " I said. We lead him to the clearing near the path where we'd seen Ted and the turtle, and he shook Ted awake. The tiger woke up, seeming a bit groggy, but when he spotted Kellan, he seemed to light up.

"Hey Kell, I kinda got uh, knocked out by dinner." He shifted into human form, that of a pale-skinned short man from the Earth Dragon Continent, with long, bright green hair and cat-like eyes to match. Damn, another pretty boy? Everywhere I go, there seem to be delicate, soft looking guys who look like they'd shatter into glass if you punch them, and half of them can put up a damn good fight. On one hand, this is viscerally annoying, but on the other, twinks are pretty nice to hang around. He looked to be around the same age as Kellan, and looked at Kellan with a look that was half shame and half pure adoration.

"Yeah, it landed in our pond. I'll cook it when we get back. Just be careful next time, ok? There are beings in this forest that could kill you in a second flat,and I don't wanna lose you." Kellan reached out a massive hand and ruffled Ted's hair.

Ted seemed to take the head rub as a challenge, and jumped into the air, embracing Kellan in a hug.The gator-man kissed the small tiger-man on the forehead, and I heard what sounded like an excited squeak from Alex.

"I'm safe as long as I have you, aren't I?" Ted said, his last few words turning into a purr.

"Damn right, you silly cat, and don't you forget it. Now let's go home, and treat these kids to some trabbit stew for helping me save your ass."

"Sounds good to me, what do you three think? Thanks for saving me, by the way. If you hadn't told Kell, I could've gotten killed or badly injured by the time he went to look for me." Ted said.

Avarius spoke up. "It was no problem,we like helping people. Also, I've never turned down an offer of food in my life, and i'm not going to start now."

Everyone laughed, and the three of us followed Kellan and Ted to their home. We were all hungry, and Kellan killed, gutted and cleaned the unfortunate trabbit pretty quickly, throwing the good meat and some diced magic vegetables into the pot.Looked like carrots, potatoes, onions, celery, and few other things, including some  herbs, as well as garlic that radiated  a pretty strong fire element mana. We settled into some comfy chairs to wait as a heavenly smell began to fill the house.